Lesson Learned
by Desperatembrace
Summary: Grimmjow leaves for work, leaving Orihime and Ichigo home to converse and hang out. Bad thing is, Orihime decides to gift Ichigo, who still has a bit of missing memories, with some of her cooking. That poor kitchen... E&S oneshot, AU


Yay! I decided to go ahead and do the oneshot... I got really excited after finishing chapter 13 and was a bit restless... so I decided to put my bouncy-ness to use. And this is how it turned out. XD So... yeah.

This is a one shot based off of my multi-chapter fic Endure and Survive. You don't have to read E&S to be able to understand this. It can stand alone.

Started July 21st.

Completed July 22nd.

**Authoress: **Desperatembrace

**Disclaimer(s): **I do not own Bleach. Sadly, it is owned by the brilliant Kubo.

... I don't own the Muffin Man song, either. I think I would kill myself if I did...

**Warning: **Foul language, creepy child songs and terrible cooking. XD

**Lesson Learned**

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The day had started normal enough. Ichigo had waltzed through his door with a pillow case full of ice cubes, dumping about half of the cold squares under his covers all around him while he slept. He had then proceeded to switch his normal pillow with the very uncomfortably half-stuffed ice cube pillow case. Grimmjow had woken up, shivering from the cold and his clothes a bit damp. He had an uncomfortable crick in his neck from the faux pillow and was in desperate need of a hot shower.

Alright. So maybe it wasn't quite _normal _in the eyes of other people. But by now, this type of thing had become normal routine. His house guest (_no, roommate, _he corrected himself) seemed to get a kick out of finding new ways to wake him up. While he really didn't like waking up to such things in the morning (to the point of where he actually _dreaded _going to bed the night prior), he was rather interested in the random ideas that the younger man came up with.

All in all, these types of events had become routine--the norm in their household. He took a shower, shrugged on some business clothes and ate breakfast. The only difference that morning was that they had a visitor. Ichigo had been getting visits from friends and family back home after that one night that his father and sisters had arrived to see their beloved family member. This time, it was one of Ichigo's close friends--a woman by the name of Inoue Orihime.

The doorbell had rang. Grimmjow had stood from the island counter and walked to the door, opening it without even bothering to look through the peephole. Standing directly on the other side of the door was a woman of long orange hair and kind gray eyes, clothed with a simple blouse and flowing skirt. Now, while most people would take notice of the brilliant, outrageous hair color, Grimmjow had lived with someone of an even brighter orange colored hair. Not to mention, he himself had strangely colored hair... and his friend had _pink _hair. You couldn't get much more exotic than that. Now that the hair feature was more or less a dud, his eyes were glued to a feature of a different nature.

This woman's breasts were _exceptionally _large.

Teal eyes were frozen on the poor lady's torso, Grimmjow vaguely thinking, _...might just be on par with _Halibel... He blinked out of his stupor when she gave a slight cough, smiling up at him when his eyes snapped back on her. By the way she was acting, it seemed like she had that reaction a lot...

The woman extended a slender hand as invitation for a handshake. She gave him a brilliant smile as he reached forward and took it, giving a sturdy shake. Pulling back her hand, she said, "Hello, you must be Grimmjow. My name is Inoue Orihime..." she stood on her tip-toes and looked over his shoulder for a moment before letting her heels lightly touch the floor once more. "I'm one of Ichigo's friends... is he here?" Another radiant smile touched her lips as she shifted, tugging on a lock of hair.

He nodded slowly, stepping back to let her in. "Yeah... he's in the kitchen." He allowed her to pass by him, the scent of oranges assaulting his senses. She turned back for a moment in question, cocking her head to the side slightly. He paused, wondering what was wrong before letting out a simple, "oh." Grimmjow pointed to the left, watching as she made to turn... but ended up tripping over her own feet and falling to the floor. Before he could even _think _of helping her up, she had stood back up and walked off to the indicated room. Finally managing to blink, Grimmjow vaguely wondered if that whole phenomenon had actually just happened, much less transpired in under 3 seconds. He stared at the wall in contemplation, listening as her heels clacked on the tiled flooring when she entered the kitchen. There was a small squeak before there was a loud squeal of Ichigo's name. He rolled his eyes and stepped away from the door, going into the same room that the woman had just entered.

When he walked in, he found Orihime squeezing the daylights out of his poor house guest (a hug, maybe?) and the taller individual waving his arms to the sides. "Inoue..! Hey... you're crushing me!" She let out an embarrassed noise, peeling herself off of him and giving a sheepish smile. Stepping back a bit, she said, "Sorry. I'm just so happy that you're alright..." She blushed, looking away in embarrassment.

Something about the moment seemed to tick him off. Like he couldn't intrude or something... Grimmjow growled lightly to himself. 'Couldn't intrude'? Yeah, right. He loudly cleared his throat and locked his gaze onto Ichigo's. "I'm going to go to work. Call me if anything goes wrong."

The orange haired man nodded in response, raising an eyebrow in question when the taller smirked. "What?" Grimmjow merely shook his head and said, "Well, I was just thinking--because of your... _wake-up call _this morning, my sheets are now damp..." He paused for dramatic effect before saying, "Good luck with the laundry." And with a raunchy, playful smirk he was out of the kitchen, down the corridor and out the door. Back in the kitchen, there was a pause before Ichigo childishly stamped his foot and cursed at the top of his lungs.

"Damnit!"

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From there, things had gone perfectly fine. Supposedly. Of course, he was roped into doing all sorts of other things that didn't even apply to his job. (Why was he supposed to test the new weapons from the weapons department again?) When he had finally plopped down at his desk to get his actual work done, he couldn't help but sigh in relief. Of course, due to his brilliant luck, he received a lovely phone call about half an hour into working on an important ad. While an actual ring was rather annoying in itself, the specified ringtone for the caller was on a whole new level. The blasted song that came on... was a song that shouldn't have even been allowed to _exist._

_"Do you know the Muffin Man? The Muffin.." _

Dear heaven and all that is holy, what the _fuck _was that doing on his phone?! He had never downloaded such a tone... but... He let out a sigh. There was only one person gutsy enough to pull this kinda shit on his phone.

Second checking the ID, Grimmjow flipped his phone open sighed at the other person on the line. "What?" There was a moment of silence before the caller replied, "You really do need to stop sighing. I heard it makes you age faster."

Resisting the urge to twitch, he snapped back, "What the hell would you know? What the hell are you calling me for anyways?" The woman on the other end merely made a tutting sound--no doubt waving her finger condescendingly. "Now, now, Grimmy. That's not the way to talk to your sister. My sole purpose in this world is to annoy you."

Unable to surpress the twitch that claimed the corner of his eye, he gritted his teeth before forcing himself to speak with a bit nicer of a tone. "Why did you call me?" He could almost hear the smile that stretched across Nel's face at the question. She said, "Didn't I just say? 'My sole purpose in this world is to annoy you'."

Physically: Grimmjow blinked, his mouth hanging open.

Mentally: Grimmjow punched a wall before reaching up to tear his hair out.

Slowly, he pulled the cell phone away from his ear and just snapped it shut. End of story. He replaced the small electronic object back in its spot on the desk and proceeded to work once more on the ad that just had to be completed. He could not afford to mess this one up. Failure of the completion of this ad could spell his downfall.

Almost instantly after his fingers had touched the keyboard, the phone had gone off again. And it was that song. _Again._

_"Do you know the Muffin Man? The Muffin Man? The Muffin--" _Noticing it was his sister once more, Grimmjow quickly flipped the phone open and then shut once more. A few more seconds went by before...

_"Do you know the Muffin Man? The Muff--" _Once more, he flipped it open and shut. This continued multiple times until his fingers had just become so _stiff_ from the motion of flipping the phone open and shut. He would have turned it on silent (or even better, changed the damned song) but there was a minor problem.

You know those phones... the ones that if you press _any _button they answer the call? The terrible, cursed ones that you have to wait for the ringer to stop before you can do anything on the phone? Yeah. He had one of those. Somewhere up above, a God was mischievously laughing at his misfortune. And so the terrible torture continued.

_"Do you know the Muffin Man? The Muffin Man? The Muffin Man? Do you know the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane?"_

Finally, after multiple repetitions of this, he flipped the phone open and barked into it, "_What?"_ There was a silence on the other end of the line before he heard Ichigo's cautious voice. "Grimmjow..?" The blue haired man quickly sobered up as the younger continued. "You told me to call if something happened..." Grimmjow straightened up in his chair, eyes narrowing as he imagined Ichigo picking at his pants uncomfortably, shrinking away from his gaze.

"Well..." He started off hesitantly, unsure if it was such a good idea to tell him this. Of course, telling him over the phone would probably make things easier on his part. He might cool down a bit on his mad rush over to the apartment...

But, of course, there was always the chance that he _might not..._

Ichigo blew out a breath. "Well.. you see... I kinda had this feeling that I shouldn't have let her do it... there was just this _feeling_, you know? And..." He gave a nervous chuckle, the sound over the line ringing warning bells all throughout Grimmjow's head. She... meaning the Orihime chick.

"Well, I ignored that feeling... though... I really shouldn't have..." There was a silence before Ichigo said, "I didn't remember until after... she did it and then--" he was cut off abruptly by Grimmjow.

"What did she do?"

The way he had said it made a chill slink its way up Ichigo's back. It was said with utter simplicity, but... laced with menace. Grimmjow was serious. He gulped, vaguely wondering if he would be able to dart out the door and get down to Cirucci's apartment before Grimmjow hauled his ass over the moment that the call ended.

"She... took on the duties of cooking dinner."

His foul, menacing mood abruptly dried up and dissolved into thin air. If Grimmjow said that Ichigo had ever failed to stump him, it would be an outright lie. Not only did he not expect such an easy, unharmful statement (having been prepared for something much, much worse), but he had no idea how to respond. How the hell was this important enough to call him?

Ichigo could almost feel the his skepticism radiating from the phone, groaning in response. "You don't understand, Grimmjow. There are things that shouldn't happen--and letting Inoue near a kitchen is one of them. I have no idea what the hell kind of monstrosity she created, but I do know that your cabinets are probably _scorched!_" He whisper-yelled into the receiver, desperate to get his point across. The blue haired man had gotten the point--loud and clear. He quickly began saving documents and shutting off the computer, hastily grabbing his keys and briefcase.

"Alright, I'll be there," he replied hastily, snapping the phone shut. He vaguely waved at a lobby clerk ("I'm clocking out early!") and hurried to his car, burning rubber to _get the hell home_.

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When Grimmjow walked through the door, he didn't know if he wanted to run right back out, or just head for the bathroom and barricade the door for a few days while he vomited. The smell was _so _intense. He didn't even know how to describe it. It was like a spicy, thick smell with an undertone of sweet. Hell, he didn't even understand if that described everything. Ichigo sat in the living room, his head between his knees and mumbling to himself. It almost sounded like prayers...

Grimmjow said, "What the hell happened exactly?" From his spot on the couch, Ichigo quickly sat up, apparently forgetting that there was a table there and slamming the back of his head on the way up. He rubbed at his head, mumbling curses and wincing. Finally, he glanced to the kitchen and just shook his head.

"I don't know. And truthfully, I don't even _want _to know." He glanced off to the side, avoiding eye contact with the other man. Grimmjow narrowed his eyes at him for a minute before stalking off to the kitchen doorway.

Words could not accurately describe the sight that he saw. All over the counters close to the stove were a type of black... goop... The pots sitting on the stove top in various colors ranging from black to brown to puke green. True to Ichigo's word, there were a couple of scorch marks on the counter. Multiple spoons were discarded in the sink, and... was that his _strainer?_ Lying in the sink was a blob of plastic... and if you looked closely, could see a small patch of the multiple holes of a strainer. If his eyes trailed to the trash can, multiple scorched wooden spoons could be seen sticking out from the bin, accompanied by a charred pot-holder. Standing in midst of all of this horrifying chaos, was Inoue Orihime, happily laying out dishes on the island counter. He couldn't help but agree with Ichigo's logic.

He didn't even _want _to know.

Ichigo came up behind him, glancing over his shoulder before shuddering. "See? The words 'kitchen' and 'Inoue' _don't mix._" Grimmjow, once again, agreed with Ichigo. He watched as Inoue drizzled some sort of sauce (it seemed to be more like an evil scientist's chemical concoction) all over the... unidentified food. While the fact that he couldn't identify the food was worrying, the fact that the sauce was multicolored worried him all the more. There was no way in hell they would be able to eat that. They would _die _the moment the spoon came within 2 centimeters of their lips.

He had been about to outright tell the woman so, but Ichigo, seeming to sense his intentions, jabbed him in the side with an elbow. He glanced over only to find a warning look painted across the man's face. He sighed, turning back to the horrifying scene in the kitchen. Quickly formulating a plan, he cleared his throat, gaining Inoue's attention.

"That looks really delicious." He almost cringed. He never imagined it would be so hard to spout such a lie..! Just the thought of _anyone _thinking it was delicious was... Grimmjow cut off his thoughts immediately. He didn't need to speed up the nausea. "What's in it?"

A taboo question, yes. But it was necessary to get the point across. He couldn't just randomly start spewing out ingredients that weren't even in the... dish. She began to name off ingredients, ranging from beef, to cream, to salsa, to chocolate and even apples. None of this stuff would be able to work, though. They were all things that they actually used. It would be an obvious lie. When she said cauliflower, however, he perked up. "Cauliflower?" He schooled his expression, widening his eyes in faux horror. When she nodded, he allowed his eyes to widen even more, dramatically performing the act of a horrified man. "Oh no.."

Inoue cocked her head to the side worriedly, her orange hair falling around her face in waves. "What's wrong? What's wrong with cauliflower?" Grimmjow shut his eyes and shook his head, as if the whole thing was just too much to take. Behind him, Ichigo rolled his eyes. Dramatic much?

Grimmjow opened his eyes once more and fixed a steady gaze on the woman. "You see, I'm allergic to cauliflower. Deathly. And Ichi here..." He jabbed a thumb at the orange haired young man standing behind him. "His doctor recently told him that he can't have cauliflower." Ichigo jolted, schooling his own expression into a somber one, shaking his head sadly.

Orihime gasped, throwing a hand up to her mouth delicately. "Oh no! I'm so sorry! I'll make something else...!" Before Grimmjow's mouth could drop in defeat, Ichigo lightly pushed him to the side and stepped forward, shaking his head and waving his hands reassuringly. "No, no, Inoue. It's fine. It'll take a while to prepare anyways..." She stared at him, ready to protest. When none came, Grimmjow dropped the somber expression and gave a smirk.

"Chinese, anyone?"

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Grimmjow stared at the t.v. screen, not really watching the movie that was playing in favor of reviewing the events of the day. After he had left to bring back some real, _edible _food, Orihime had started cleaning her mess, throwing away the now-useless items and washing any cookware that was salvageable. When he had gotten back, they had eaten. The busty woman had quickly proclaimed that she needed to head home and left for the night. The minute she had left, Ichigo had gone into the kitchen and vigorously re-scrubbed the cookware down, getting into every nook and cranny of the kitchen and cleaning every speck of grime there was. The orange haired man was thoroughly convinced that it was the necessary procedures to keep a fungus monster from growing in the recesses of the kitchen.

After he had finished the mad scrub-down, he had promptly collapsed onto the couch, vaguely watching the movie that Grimmjow had been watching for a few minutes before he passed out. Grimmjow looked over from the leather chair, checking to make sure his house guest... _no, roommate, _he reminded himself, was still breathing. Watching the rise and fall of the man's chest, he blinked, suddenly remembering something.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he quickly ran through the different folders and selected a new ring tone before quickly deleting the cursed one that had teased and annoyed him hours prior. He leaned back in the chair, letting the movie run as he sighed. It had been an interesting, eventful, and _very _tiring day.

He found out not _only _was Orihime a naturally clumsy person, but she had weird tastes in food. All in all, an utter disaster in the kitchen. This day had proved that there were still lessons to be learned. Two had been proved to him in under 4 hours.

First lesson, never allow Inoue Orihime near any kitchen--mainly his--ever again.

Second lesson, don't let Nel even _think _about touching his phone. Hide it properly.

He blew out another sigh, sinking further into the leather.

_**Lesson learned.**_

**-Owari-**

Alright. I admit it--I just randomly threw that cell-phone muffin-man part in there randomly. Sorry, Grimmjow--it was for the sake of my entertainment! I just had to from my own experience. We had to go to the grocery store late at night because my mom was out of commission and... while we were at the self check-out, I shit you not, the Muffin Man song started playing throughout the store. I just looked at my brother and best friend like, "What the fuck..?"

I must say, I have quite the interesting experiences--what with my family being a bunch of lunatics... -shrugs- I actually have people at school who are scared of my family (and they've only met _one _of my family members _once!_) But it's cool. I enjoy the chaos. My life is never boring.

Tell me about your Muffin Man song experiences! XD

...Or terrible cooking experiences. I've caught a pot-holder on fire... (It was the first and **only **time I have ever caught anything on fire due to cooking. I **swear.**)

Care to review?


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